"Palpable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... production of The Merchant of Venice it has been my object to combine with the poet's art a faithful representation of the picturesque city; to render it again palpable to the traveller who actually gazed upon the seat of its departed glory; and, at the same time, to exhibit it to the student, who ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare
... for an insurgent, Barabbas, a man caught red-handed in the very crime for which these hypocrites professed in their new-fledged loyalty to Caesar to be anxious to have Jesus executed. The cynicism of their choice is palpable. By daring to make it, they show in what contempt they hold Pilate. The governor loses ground considerably by this false move. Then he tries to throw the blame of the murder of Jesus, which he sees he cannot ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... would divide the loves and suffrages of mankind, but not as dramatic characters: the moment we come to look nearer, we acknowledge that it is indeed "rashness and ignorance to compare Schiller with Shakspeare."[22] Thekla is a fine conception in the German spirit, but Juliet is a lovely and palpable creation. The coloring in which Schiller has arrayed his Thekla is pale, sombre, vague, compared with the strong individual marking, the rich glow of life and reality, which distinguish Juliet. One contrast in particular ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... prisoner entrusted to their charge, was insulted, coerced, and crushed. Sufficiently cunning to avoid a palpable infraction of the orders of government, they constantly violated their spirit. Physical weakness, or mental incapacity, they treated as evasion or contempt. Prone to invoke the interposition of the magistracy, they drove unfortunate beings for slight offences to a tribunal, where the presumption ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... between the working of fate under a personal God, and under the Reign of Law. In the former case the contradiction between the foreknowledge of a Creator, and the free-will of a Creature, is direct, palpable, absolute. We might as well talk of black-whiteness and of white-blackness. A hundred generations of divines have never been able to ree the riddle; a million will fail. The difficulty is insurmountable to the ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... in the room; the thick, impenetrable darkness seemed almost a palpable curtain screening what went forward; the silence was for a little ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... demand in EU export markets. Despite the global slowdown in 2001-02, strong domestic activity in construction, agriculture, and consumption have kept growth above 4%. An IMF Standby Agreement, signed in 2001, has been accompanied by slow but palpable gains in privatization, deficit reduction, and the curbing of inflation. Nonetheless, recent macroeconomic gains have done little to address Romania's widespread poverty, while corruption and red ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... in his heart. The sense of infinite distance between his race and that unfortunate race whom he pitied so sincerely, to whose future he looked forward with so much apprehension, was as distinct and palpable to him as to any one of his compeers. The thousandth part of a drop of the blood of the despised race degraded, in his ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... hereafter, who can tell? But the daily and hourly discharge of our duties, the purity, humanity, and activity of our lives, do avail much here; all that we can add to our own worth and each other's happiness is of evident, palpable, present avail, and I believe will prove of eternal avail to our souls, who may carry hence all they have gained in this mortal school to as much higher, nobler, and happier a sphere as the just judgment of Almighty God shall after death ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... others also. There was Perosi, the Benedictine priest, whose oratorios, tentative, childishly sincere mixtures of Palestrina and Wagner, were forced upon Europe in the late 'nineties with the full driving power of his Church, and who, when his musical insufficiency became palpable, was dropped in favour of Elgar himself, whose sudden rise into deserved fame coincides in time. There was again the allocution of Pius X, known as the Motu proprio, which sought to reform ecclesiastical ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... increase his own credit and interest. Hence arises the difficulty, to those who write the history of that period, of tracing the hand of the king in all these conspiracies, carried on in his name, and to pronounce either his entire innocence or his palpable treachery. He did not betray his country, or sell his subjects; but he did not observe his oaths to the constitution or his country. An upright man, but a persecuted king, he believed that oaths, extorted by violence and eluded through fear, were no perjuries; and he broke each ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... not have waited for so palpable a hint, for he would have retired on the first appearance of any thing so disagreeable as a misunderstanding between man and wife. But, an ungovernable interest in the lovely girl, who stood trembling at her father's knee, caused him to forget his habitual ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... said Janet to herself; but the shower-bath had no palpable effect upon her. "What have we that is so important that you ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... Shakespeare. His idea pervades the place; the whole pile seems but as his mausoleum. The feelings, no longer checked and thwarted by doubt, here indulge in perfect confidence: other traces of him may be false or dubious, but here is palpable evidence and absolute certainty. As I trod the sounding pavement there was something intense and thrilling in the idea that in very truth the remains of Shakespeare were mouldering beneath my feet. It was a long time before I could prevail upon myself to leave the place; and as ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... Store-house of Real Life, his steps had ascended in the social ladder—that all which his childhood had lost—all which the robbers of his heritage had gained, the grandeur and the power of WEALTH—above all, the hourly and the tranquil happiness of a stainless name, became palpable and distinct. He had loved Eugenie as a boy loves for the first time an accomplished woman. He regarded her, so refined—so gentle—so gifted, with the feelings due to a superior being, with an eternal recollection of the ministering angel that had shone upon him ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Weltschmerz to his posterity. The old are sometimes sad, on account of the sins and follies they have personally committed and know they will commit again, but for pure gloom—gloom positive, absolute, all but palpable—you must go to youth. That is not merely the time of disappointment, it is in itself disappointment; it is not what it expected to be; and it finds nothing which confronts it quite, if at all, responsive to the inward vision. The greatest, the loveliest ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... and had drawn down upon them those remonstrances by which the habitual dexterity of Rome at once saves appearances, and suffers the continuance of the delinquency. The Jesuits were too useful to be restrained; yet their crimes were too palpable to be passed over. In consequence, the complaints of the monarchs of Spain and Portugal were answered by bulls issued from time to time, equally formal and ineffective. Yet even from these documents may be ascertained the singularly gross, worldly, and illegitimate pursuits of an order, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... so highly till I can see deeper into the diabolical plot than I now do." [Footnote: Ibid.] His words were all the bitter expression of a heart wounded beyond endurance by wrongs which seemed too palpable and plain for discussion or explanation. In the distribution of commands on the peace establishment made soon afterward, Halleck went to the Pacific coast and did not live long. It is to be feared that no opportunity for a full understanding between him ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... he said, "there's no use to pretend that this ore which you have is stolen. We have seen samples of it before and it is very unusual—in fact, no one has seen anything like it. Therefore your claim that it is stolen is a palpable pretense, to deprive me of my rights ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... up? I began to feel like one clad in garments of invisibility. I could see, but was not seen. I could feel, but was not felt. In the country there are few who would not stop to speak to me, or at least appraise me with their eyes; but here I was a wraith, a ghost—not a palpable human being at all. For a moment ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... so with Marion as she lay all the morning convulsed almost with the violence of her emotions. Her own weakness was palpable to herself, as she struggled to regain her breath, struggled to repress her sobs, struggled to move about the house, and be as might be any other girl. "Better just lie thee down till thy father return, and leave me to bustle through ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... Bruno strained his ears to catch at least an inkling of its precise nature ere the trouble could fairly close in; but only silence surrounded them,—silence, and an almost palpable gloom. ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... of some great piece of masonry falling, disturbed my meditations; and, once, it seemed I could hear whispering in the room, behind me. Yet it was utterly useless to try to see anything. Such blackness, as existed, scarcely can be conceived. It was palpable, and hideously brutal to the sense; as though something dead, pressed up against me—something soft, and ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... from Prince Koltsoff was an influence she did not like. On the contrary, feeling its power, she had begun to fear it. He attracted her peculiarly. She could not quite explain the sensation; it was indefinable, vague, but palpable nevertheless. Then he was high in the Russian nobility, upon terms of friendship with the Czar, a prominent figure in the highest society of European capitals. His wife would at once take a position which any girl might covet. True, she would probably be unhappy ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... such representations to represent the Virgin with a sword in her bosom, and even with seven swords in allusion to the seven sorrows. This very material and palpable version of the allegorical prophecy (Luke ii, 35) has been found extremely effective as an appeal to the popular feelings, so that there are few Roman Catholic churches without such a painful and literal ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... press, and inserted at the end of the play the prologue which is met with only in the quartos. He made a few happy emendations, some of which coincide accidentally with the readings of the First Folio; but his text is deformed by many palpable errors. His practical experience as a playwright induced him, however, to prefix for the first time a list of dramatis personae to each play, to divide and number acts and scenes on rational principles, and to mark the entrances and exits of the characters. ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... very palpable compulsion on the wrong side, the most desperate action of God's servants in all ages has never been found strong enough. Hence there has come about another sort of compulsion, within the souls of all God's messengers. ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... ready, but this remembrance pricked her own conscience and paved the way to a reconciliation. Nancy had no high-flown notions. She loved money, but it must be got without palpable dishonesty; per contra, she was not going to denounce her sweetheart, but then again she would not marry him so long as he differed with her about the ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... creatures would go to work in a more direct way, and with gross and palpable artifice, which yet the credulous Timon was too blind to see, would affect to admire and praise something that Timon possessed, a bargain that he had bought, or some late purchase, which was sure to draw from this yielding and soft-hearted lord a gift of the thing commended, ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... This palpable suggestion—borne out by what he remembered of the other domestic details—that the house had been planned with reference to sudden foray or escape reawakened his former uneasy reflections. Zeenie, who had been watching his face, added, "It's no slouch, when b'ar or painters hang round nights ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... growing quite as furious as Ashby. He now felt certain that Ashby had found it and had it in his possession. He considered Ashby's answers as palpable evasions of a ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... I cannot accept a share in the 'Edinburgh Encyclopaedia.' I am obliged to decline by motives of prudence. I do not know anything of the agreement made by the proprietors, except in the palpable mismanagement of a very exclusive and promising concern. I am therefore fearful to risk my property in ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... One leaf from that immortal wreath which shades The Hero's living brow, or decks his urn? Breathes there who does not triumph in the thought That "Nelson's language is his mother tongue," And that St. Vincent's country is his own? Oh! these bright guerdons of renown are won By means most palpable to sense and sight; By days of peril and by nights of toil; By Valour's long probation, closed at last In Victory's arms—consummated and seal'd In ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... their elders corrupt constitutions, and irreligious course of conuersation, than to be inclinable to anie article or point tending to innouation: so inflexible is the posteritie to swarue from the traditions of antiquitie, stand the same vpon neuer so grosse and palpable absurdities.] ...
— Chronicles 1 (of 6): The Historie of England 5 (of 8) - The Fift Booke of the Historie of England. • Raphael Holinshed
... eyes and listened; I could almost hear the rustle of her dress on the gravel. Why do we make such an ado about death? What is it, after all, but a sort of refinement of life? She died ten years ago, and yet, as I sat there in the sunny stillness, she was a palpable, audible presence. I went afterwards into the gallery of the palace, and wandered for an hour from room to room. The same great pictures hung in the same places, and the same dark frescoes arched above them. Twice, of old, I went there ...
— The Diary of a Man of Fifty • Henry James
... city for two or three months for purposes of art and literature and affection, for, as there seems in the minds of divines to be some doubt of personal identity when this mortal coil is shuffled off, I am fain to embrace my friends' coils while they are yet palpable. This idea of city visits implies a very free life; but there seems now to be no hinderance to it. When the band of Phalanxes, proceeding into desert and free air, no more allow art to rendezvous in cities, I can take one ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... seventeen. Little need to trace the career of the fair and ill-starred Jacqueline. Few chapters of historical romance have drawn more frequent tears. The favorite heroine of ballad and drama, to Netherlanders she is endued with the palpable form and perpetual existence of the Iphigenias, Mary Stuarts, Joans of Arc, or other consecrated individualities. Exhausted and broken-hearted, after thirteen years of conflict with her own kinsmen, consoled for the cowardice and brutality of three husbands by the gentle and knightly ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the stage, although Moliere, Holberg, and other masters, have frequently availed themselves of them. The comic effect arises from our having herein a pretty obvious demonstration of the mind's dependence on external things: we have, as it were, motives assuming a palpable form. In Comedy these chastisements hold the same place that violent deaths, met with heroic magnanimity, do in Tragedy. Here the resolution remains unshaken amid all the terrors of annihilation; the man perishes but his principles ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... judge of instruction and Plantat were far from being of the same opinion; they knew it before speaking a word. But M. Domini, whose opinion rested on material and palpable facts, which appeared to him indisputable, was not disposed to provoke contradiction. Plantat, on the contrary, whose system seemed to rest on impressions, on a series of logical deductions, would not clearly express himself, without a positive and pressing invitation. ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... placed before the fire to thaw. 'We'll eat Shookum before the trip is over. What d'ye say, Ruth?' The Indian woman settled the coffee with a piece of ice, glanced from Malemute Kid to her husband, then at the dogs, but vouchsafed no reply. It was such a palpable truism that none was necessary. Two hundred miles of unbroken trail in prospect, with a scant six days' grub for themselves and none for the dogs, could admit no other alternative. The two men and the woman grouped about the fire and began their ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... the Hawaiian mind and heart. Was it because he was tied to a false theology and a false theory of human nature? We are not called upon to answer this question. Let others say what was wrong in his standpoint. The object of this book is not controversial; but when a palpable injustice has been done, and is persisted in by people of the purest motives, as to the thoughts, emotions, and mental operations of the "savage," and as to the finer workings within that constitute the furniture and sanctuary of heart and soul, it is imperative to correct so grave a mistake; and ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... recently been played off upon that deserving class the housemaids of London, by the insertion of an advertisement in the morning papers, announcing that a servant in the above capacity was wanted by Lord Melbourne. Had it been for a cook, the absurdity would have been too palpable, as Melbourne has frequently ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... provoking indifference more trying to a sensitive mind than downright insult. You know it is based on some hidden obstacle, palpable to your enemy, though hidden from you,—and that he is calm because he know that the nature of things will work against you, so that he need not interfere. If I had been less interested, I would have revenged myself on him by remaining silent; but I was very much ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... straight into the dimly-seen face. Down upon me silently dropped a naked body, and something warm came flowing over my hand. But, knowing my foes to be of flesh and blood, feeling myself at handgrips now with a palpable enemy, I threw off the body, leapt up and fired, though blindly, at the flying shape that flashed across the loggia—and was lost in the ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... usefulness, or the character of our institution, admit any candidate to a higher degree, until he has made suitable proficiency in the preceding one, to be always tested by a strict examination in open lodge. Nor can it do so, without a palpable violation of ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... leaving the usual rich and glowing train on its track. In the centre of this flood of fiery light, a human form appeared, drawn against the gilded background, as distinctly, and seemingly as palpable, as though it would come within the grasp of any extended hand. The figure was colossal; the attitude musing and melancholy, and the situation directly in the route of the travellers. But imbedded, as it was, in its setting of garish light, it was impossible to ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... tongue of midnight hath told twelve:— Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time. I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn, As much as we this night have overwatch'd. This palpable-gross play hath well beguil'd The heavy gait of night.—Sweet friends, to bed.— A fortnight hold we this solemnity, In nightly revels and ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... very artificialness. By artificial I do not mean deceitful. I saw nobody but nice people there, smooth, kind, and polite. By artificial I mean wrought up. You don't get at the heart of things. Artificialness spreads and spans all with a crystal barrier,—invisible, but palpable. Nothing was left to grow and go at its own sweet will. The very springs were paved and pavilioned. For green fields and welling fountains and a possibility of brooks, which one expects from the name, you found a Greek temple, and a pleasure-ground, graded and grassed and pathed like ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... but—only a ghost, alas! Only that. In his first visit, Soames was a creature of flesh and blood, whereas the creatures into whose midst he was projected were but ghosts, I take it—solid, palpable, vocal, but unconscious and automatic ghosts, in a building that was itself an illusion. Next time, that building and those creatures will be real. It is of Soames that there will be but the semblance. I wish I could think him destined to revisit the world actually, physically, ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... to my heart to tell of the end of that day, how the fugitives vanished into Immensity; how there were no more trains how Botley stared unsympathetically with a palpable disposition to derision, denying conveyances how the landlord of the Heron was suspicious, how the next day was Sunday, and the hot summer's day had crumpled the collar of Phipps and stained the skirts of Mrs. Milton, and dimmed the radiant emotions of the whole party. ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... activity of simple blue country has been already alluded to. This attribute renders in it a plain palpable brick dwelling-house allowable; though a thing which, in every country but the simple blue, compels every spectator of any feeling to send up aspirations, that builders who, like those of Babel, have brick for stone, may be put, like those of Babel, to confusion. Here, ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... came back to me in a vision, or rather an obsession, infinitely more present, more visible and palpable than this night that we were living in. The light with the red shade hung just over my head on my right hand; the blond walls were round me; they shut me in alone with the wounded man who lay stretched before me on the bed. And the moments were measured by the rhythm ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... many workers were busy on dock and riverside, but the streets through which our course lay were almost empty. Sometimes a furtive shadow would move out of some black gully and fade into a dimly seen doorway in a manner peculiarly unpleasant and Asiatic. But we met no palpable pedestrian throughout ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... should be provided, then a palpable and very gross wrong would be inflicted upon the claimants who had not been so fortunate as to have their claims taken up in preference to others. Besides, the fund having been appropriated by law to a specific purpose, in fulfillment of the treaty, it belongs to the Cherokees, and the authority ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... delusion," replied Ranulph, coldly; "the figure was as palpable as your own. Can I doubt, when I behold this result? Could any deceit have been practised upon me, at that distance?—the precise time, moreover, agreeing. Did not the phantom bid me return?—I have returned—he is dead. I have gazed upon ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... opaque darkness that I remembered having once experienced when, as a boy, I went exploring some Devonshire caverns and clumsily allowed my candle to fall and become extinguished in a pool of water. It seemed to press upon me, to become palpable to the touch, to so closely wrap me about that my very breathing became impeded. And oh, how frightfully hot and close it was! The air was absolutely stagnant, and the slight draught created by the uneasy motion of the felucca seemed to positively ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... is as palpable, or, rather to speak accurately, it is as clearly absent as the color from an oil-painting, leaving mere ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... some angularities, considerable gauntness, and much sunburn, Seth told himself that he was not different from other men. It was not palpable to the casual observer that as men went he was a failure, but Seth realized ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... "young man". I have likewise dined with Horne Tooke. He is a clear-headed old man, as every man must needs be who attends to the real import of words, but there is a sort of charlatanry in his manner that did not please me. He makes such a mystery out of plain and palpable things, and never tells you any thing without first exciting, and detaining your curiosity. But it were a bad heart that could not pardon worse faults than these in the author of "The ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... With a palpable sigh of relief Barton lighted a cigarette. "You're nice," he said. "I like you!" Conscientiously then ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... upon the subject, of love, so awful to approach, he was unwilling thus soon to leave a theme so sweet, yet so formidable. Therefore, crossing his legs, and bracing up against the chair-back; he determined, now or never, to give her an inkling of his feelings, an intention so very palpable, that Nattie was glad indeed to hear from ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... in the chimney as he spoke, and flung itself with the thud of a palpable body against the window-pane. Mr. Gillat heard it; he could not well do otherwise. "Still," he said, "it might rain; ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... theirs. They have too much sterling worth and profound faith to be vulgarly jealous. They fear nothing like shame or crime; but they feel the fact that their own preoccupation with homely household duties precludes real companionship; the interchange of emotions, thoughts, sentiments, a living and palpable and vivid contact of mind with mind, of heart with heart. They see others whose leisure ministers to grace, accomplishments, piquancy, and attractiveness, and the moth flies towards the light by his own nature. Because he is a wise and virtuous and honorable moth, he does not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... of broken sunlight, imparting specks of vivid cheerfulness, in contrast with the quiet depth of the prevailing tint. Of all this scene, the slumbering river has a dream- picture in its bosom. Which, after all, was the most real,—the picture, or the original?—the objects palpable to our grosser senses, or their apotheosis in the stream beneath? Surely the disembodied images stand in closer relation to the soul. But both the original and the reflection had here an ideal charm; and, had it been a thought more wild, ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... variation. The maximum variation known at the present time in the animal kingdom is seen in dogs, but in all the varieties the relations of the bones remain the same and the shape of the teeth undergoes no palpable change. ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... triumph of the grave! How powerless were the mightiest monarch's arm, Vain his loud threat, and impotent his frown! How ludicrous the priest's dogmatic roar! The weight of his exterminating curse 65 How light! and his affected charity, To suit the pressure of the changing times, What palpable deceit!—but for thy aid, Religion! but for thee, prolific fiend, Who peoplest earth with demons, Hell with men, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... to Fenianism. An honest conspirator and brilliant writer, he proved that the pen of journalism was sharper than the Irish pike. Carlyle described him as "a fine elastic-spirited young fellow, whom I grieved to see rushing on destruction palpable, by attack of windmills." Destruction came surely, but coupled with immortality. He was transported as a felon before the insurrection, while his writings sprang up in angry but ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... that time the number of Lamb's old intimates was gradually diminished. The eternally recurring madness of his sister was more frequent. The hopelessness of it—if hope indeed ever existed—was more palpable, more depressing. His own spring of mind was fast losing its power of rebound. He felt the decay of the active principle, and now confined his efforts to morsels of criticism, to verses for albums, and small contributions to periodicals, which (excepting only the "Popular Fallacies") it ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... course of this speech there is one most palpable contradiction. In the beginning of it, the orator mentioned the change of feeling and opinion that had occurred as to the institution of slavery,—"the North growing much more warm and strong against slavery, and the ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... let it be judged and seriously considered with what hope the affairs of our Religion are committed to one among others [the Westminster Assembly] who hath now only left him which of the twain he will choose—whether this shall be his palpable ignorance, or the same 'wickedness' of his own Book which he so lavishly imputes to the writings of other men; and whether this of his, that thus peremptorily defames and attaints of wickedness unspotted Churches, unblemished Parliaments, and ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... ain't much need o' lockin' YOUR door," he retorted darkly; "not from what I saw when I was in your studio!" He should have stopped there, for the hit was palpable and justified; but in his resentment he overdid it. "You needn't be scared of anybody's cartin' off THEM pitchers, young feller! WHOOSH! An' f'm the luks of the CLO'ES I saw hangin' on the wall," he continued, growing more nettled as I smiled ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... worried and exasperated by the presence and jealous oversight of this person, Elsie had attempted to get finally rid of her by unlawful means, such as young girls have been known to employ in their straits, and to which the sex at all ages has a certain instinctive tendency, in preference to more palpable instruments for the righting of its wrongs. At any rate, this governess had been taken suddenly ill, and the Doctor had been sent for at midnight. Old Sophy had taken her master into a room apart, and said a few words to him which turned him as white as ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... man's view of the universe is mostly a view of the civilised society in which he lives. Other men and women are so much more grossly and so much more intimately palpable to his perceptions, that they stand between him and all the rest; they are larger to his eye than the sun, he hears them more plainly than thunder, with them, by them, and for them, he must live and die. And hence ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Mother Goose is a hardy old lady, and will not suffer from the grasp of the seven-year-old; and the familiar fables and tales of the "Goldilocks" variety have a firmness of surface which does not let the glamour rub off; but stories in which there is a hint of the beauty just beyond the palpable—or of a dignity suggestive of developed literature—are sorely hurt in their metamorphosis, and should be protected from it. They ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... in all lands, in all ages. In an old Chinese poem (JOLOWICZ, der Poetische Orient, s. 7) we are told that 'in the south there lives a tree, the Ivy Ko clings and winds around it, bringing the most excellent of joys and happiness in excess.' Owing to this natural and most palpable resemblance, the ancient Greeks caused the officiating priest in the temple to present to a bridal pair, on entering, a twig of Ivy, 'as a symbolical wish that their love, like it, might ever continue fresh.' It was a beautiful ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... manifold. Some of our readers will have difficulty in believing that any people can be found sufficiently credulous to allow themselves to be duped by a trick of this description, the grossness of the intended fraud seeming too palpable. Experience, however, proves the contrary. The deception is frequently practised at the present day, and not only in Spain but in England - enlightened England - and in France likewise; an instance being given in the memoirs of Vidocq, the late celebrated head of the secret ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... looked at the date. He looked at my Father. "What you trying to do, Man?" he said. "Reconstruct a financial picture of our village as it was a generation ago? Or trace your son Carol's very palpable distaste for a brush, back to his grandfather's somewhat avid devotion to pork chops?" He picked up the book. He opened the first pages. He read the names written at the tops of the pages. Some of the names were pretty faded.—"Alden, Hoppin, Weymoth, Dun Vorlees," he read. He ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... discussion, hinders that end. We all know that English history is all that Ellen has dipped into, and in the little she presumed to utter on the subject, she was perfectly correct; whereas you, in your exhibition of more reading, made a palpable error, since Homer names maids repeatedly as belonging to the palace, and we cannot doubt their being employed as our housemaids are, since their offices ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... politic as the natural result of their lack of education and civilization. He is devoted to his own people, and notes with ever-increasing regret the lack of understanding and knowledge of those people, which is so palpable in the vast majority of the letters and leading articles written on the native question. As an educated Native with liberal ideas he rather resents the power and authority of the uneducated native chiefs who govern ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... child"—"A stitch in time"—"Prevention is better than cure"—"Where the lambs go the flocks will follow"—"It is easier to form than to reform," and so on ad infinitum—proverbs multiply. The advantages of preventive work are so palpable that as soon as you broach the matter you ought to find your case proved and judgment awarded to the plaintiff, before you open your lips ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... since he can call into palpable shape dreams born of impalpable thought; as a god, since he has known the truth divested of lies, and has stood face to face with it, and been not afraid; a god thus. But a cripple inasmuch as his hand can never fashion the shapes that his vision beholds; an alien because ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... noticed more than a trace of accent in his own voice when he spoke, and there was no doubt now what it was; a very palpable Irish brogue. As he asked this question he looked at me with a curious mixture of humour and defiance. It seemed to me that the humour was assumed and the defiance genuine, but that may have been simply because the man ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... receive his fair share of the world's wealth; and the economic thought of the whole world is now devoted to the devising of means by which he may receive his due. There is no longer much question as to facts; they are only too palpable. Distribution must be reorganized, and haste must ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... show none of the signs of demoralisation. They had clearly been at great pains to brush up and give the appearance of freshness and strength. Nearly all the men were freshly shaven, and their uniforms had been brushed and made as natty and presentable as possible. They swaggered along with a palpable effort to show that they were entirely at home, and that they owned the place. The officers looked over the heads of the crowd in their best supercilious manner, and the men did their best ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... Government had the power over the State militia which it claimed. For these and other grievances, they sought for a remedy "not repugnant to their obligations as members of the Union." They declared that measures of the General Government which are palpable violations of the Constitution are void, and that the States injuriously affected might severally protect their citizens from the operation of them, by such means as the several States should judge it wise to adopt; but ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... misfortune it is," said he in reply to the secretary for foreign affairs, "that the British should have so well grounded a pretext for their palpable infractions, and what a disgraceful part, out of the choice of difficulties before us, are we ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... most singular and unexpected effects. Some persons when they find themselves under the tyranny of a single thought can see with extraordinary distinctness objects scarcely visible to others, while at the same time the most palpable things become to them almost as if they did not exist. When Mademoiselle de Verneuil hurried, after reading the marquis's letter, to prepare the way for vengeance just as she had lately been preparing all for love, she was in that stage of mental intoxication ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... came at length, and as the light rapidly increased, we looked anxiously around the horizon, but nothing but the smooth glassy sea met our sight. Oh, then, well do I remember it! There came over me a deep sense of our utter helplessness, and of the palpable necessity of dependence on a higher power. Of what use was our strength? Of what use was our seamanship? Our strength without food would quickly leave us; while all we could do was to sit still. I spoke my thoughts to my companions. They listened attentively, ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... to a standstill, for what could it add to these wonders? Yet the fairyland of which Ludo and I had dreamed was more beautiful and more real than this palpable magnificence of tin and pasteboard; which is, perhaps, one reason why the overexcited imagination of a city child shrinks back and tries to find in reality what a boy brought up in the quiet of the country can conjure up before ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... profound silence. The mistake was palpable. The details given by the Sergeant, the nationality of the prisoner, the murder of his companions, his escape from the hands of the Indians, all evidenced the fact. Glenarvan looked at Thalcave with a crestfallen face, and the Indian, turning to the Sergeant, asked whether he had never heard ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... So palpable was this impress of sanctity in his every-day-life, that no one could come in contact with him without perceiving it and feeling its inherent power. Such being the rare effulgence of Father Vincent's sanctity as seen amid the dust and darkness ...
— Memoir • Fr. Vincent de Paul
... broken at times by ominous sounds, came over the town. Lights flitted at times through its dark labyrinths, by whom borne it was impossible to perceive. The presence of death, in its most fearful shapes, seemed palpable to the senses, and we, crouching in the gloom on the roof, to which as the safest place we had returned, had before our mental vision the mutilated bodies in the rooms close below us, with the ghastly probability, ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... have seen of this translation, the following very palpable errors exist, which I do not remember to have seen noticed. The first of these errors is contained in book ix. lines 325, 326, ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.03.23 • Various
... instant, and immediately I am overwhelmed—"all Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over me." My nights are a terror to me, and I fear for my reason. That last grip of Sophy's hand is distinctly on mine now, palpable as the pressure of a fleshly hand could be. It is strange that without any external circumstances to account for it, she and I often thought the same things at the same moment. She seemed to know instinctively what was passing in my mind, so that I ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... It is true that light, in its final plenitude, is calculated to disperse all darkness. But this effect belongs to its consummation. In its earlier and struggling states, light does but reveal darkness. It makes the darkness palpable and "visible." Of which we may see a sensible illustration in a gloomy glass-house, where the sullen lustre from the furnace does but mass and accumulate the thick darkness in the rear upon which the moving figures are relieved. Or we may see an intellectual ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... the external, palpable rewards which labor brings is it to be considered a blessing; but every hour of patient labor, whether with the hands, or in study, or thought, brings with it its own priceless reward, in its direct effects upon the Character. By it the ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... had successfully grappled with the difficulties of learning the dance in mature life; and the young ladies rewarded him nobly for the effort. That is to say, they took the assumption of youth for granted in the palpable presence of fifty. ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... without exaggeration that four-fifths of all literary productions could disappear from the market without loss to a single interest of civilization. Such is the vastness of the mass of superficial or harmful books, palpable trash, extant to-day ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... possible gradually forsaking her. The one effect of her marriage-tie seemed to be the stifling predominance over her of a nature that she despised. All her efforts at union had only made its impossibility more palpable, and the relation had become for her simply a degrading servitude. The law was sacred. Yes, but rebellion might be sacred too. It flashed upon her mind that the problem before her was essentially the same as that which had lain before Savonarola—the problem where the sacredness of ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... your people. A notion has gone abroad that they can take away your power. They think they have given and can take it away. They think it lies in the Church property, and they know that they have politically the power to confiscate that property. They have been deluded into a notion that present palpable usefulness, producible results, acceptableness to your flocks, that these and such like are the tests of your divine commission. Enlighten them in this matter. Exalt our Holy Fathers the bishops, as the representatives of the Apostles, and the Angels of ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... fresh indictment was laid against him for a personal libel upon the Attorney-General himself. Collins, in reporting the trial which had just resulted in his acquittal, had accused the Attorney-General of "open palpable falsehood," and "native malignancy," and had referred to Judge Hagerman as "our old customer." This report had been published at full length in the Freeman, and it was the ground of the prosecution now instituted. The defendant laboured ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... ATHENIAN: Is it not palpable that the chief aim of the kings of that time was to get the better of the established laws, and that they were not in harmony with the principles which they had agreed to observe by word and oath? This want of harmony may have had the appearance of wisdom, ...
— Laws • Plato
... days I was a helplessly concrete young person, and all forms of the abstract, the air-drawn, afflicted me like physical discomforts. I do not remember that Thoreau spoke of his books or of himself at all, and when he began to speak of John Brown, it was not the warm, palpable, loving, fearful old man of my conception, but a sort of John Brown type, a John Brown ideal, a John Brown principle, which we were somehow (with long pauses between the vague, orphic phrases) to cherish, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... every one is assured. In the matter of thoughtless and instinctive cruelty—and that is a very fundamental matter—mankind mends steadily. I wonder and doubt if in the whole world at any time before this an aged, ill-clad woman, or a palpable cripple could have moved among a crowd of low-class children as free from combined or even isolated insult as such a one would be to-day, if caught in the rush from a London Council school. Then, for all our sins, I am sure the sense of justice is quicker and ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... then, of the first condition of continued existence in this world, is (a) the development of a Will so powerful as to overcome the hereditary (in a Darwinian sense) tendencies of the atoms composing the "gross" and palpable animal frame, to hurry on at a particular period in a certain course of Kosmic change; and (b) to so weaken the concrete action of that animal frame as to make it more amenable to the power of the Will. To defeat an army, you must ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... of his Days;—hoping always, nevertheless, that blue sky, figurative and real, does exist, and will demonstrate itself by and by. I have been the stupidest and laziest of men. I could not write even to you, till some palpable call told ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... poured them upon the head of the editor of the Korea Daily News—the English daily publication in Seoul—who had dared to tell the tale. His story was "wholly incredible." "It is impossible to imagine any educated man of ordinary intelligence foolish enough to believe such a palpable lie, unless he be totally blinded by prejudice." The Mail discovered here again another reason for supporting its plea for the suppression of "a wholly unscrupulous and malevolent mischief-maker like the Korea Daily News." "The Japanese should think seriously ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... have expended in creating that agreeable shade which they love to enjoy in their leisure hours. If climate is affected at all by the existence or non-existence of forests—a point on which scientific men do not seem to be entirely agreed—any palpable increase of the rainfall can be produced only by forests of enormous extent, and it is hardly conceivable that these could be artificially produced in Southern Russia. It is quite possible, however, that local ameliorations may be effected. During ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... of these poems. Vreede, after giving Raffles' account of the "Angrene"—the title under which the Panjis appear to have been then (1819) known—says that he has quoted the account of Raffles verbatim "because, notwithstanding the palpable inaccuracies of his conclusions, seeing our faulty information about the origin, the date, the authors, and the compilation of the Panji narratives, his indications may have, for all we ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... now brought in, and relieved us for a time from their importunity. The leading men, as usual, received each a portion from the table. When the conversation was resumed, the chief renewed his solicitations for goods, but it was now too palpable to be mistaken, that he aimed at getting every thing he possibly could, and leaving us without the means of making any presents to the Esquimaux, or other Indians we might meet. I resolved, therefore, on steadily refusing ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... incompetence. It was mainly composed of girls of sixteen and seventeen who could not reach the standard of the Sixth, and who went by the nickname of "owls" or "stupids." The prospect of being relegated to such an intellectual backwater spread palpable dismay over Winona's face. Miss ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... Some hits sufficiently palpable, however, were recorded for the advantage of posterity. When Lady Clonbrony led her to look at the Chinese pagoda, the lady paused, with her foot on the threshold, as if afraid to enter this porcelain Elysium, as she called ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... which Ramsay has reversed and turned into proof of an origin prior to Pliny's correspondence with Trajan on the subject. Another fact, now generally admitted, renders a 2nd-century date yet more incredible; and that is the failure of a writer devoted to Paul's memory to make palpable use of his Epistles. Instead of this he writes in a fashion that seems to traverse certain things recorded in them. If, indeed, it were proved that Acts uses the later works of Josephus, we should have to place the book about ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... east wall would probably be not quite parallel with the old east wall of the chancel. The side walls would be set out at right angles to the new east wall; and thus, when the new chancel was joined to the church, the divergence of axis would be more palpable than before. Or, for the same reason, a divergence of axis might be created for the first time. This seems to be the common sense explanation of a very common feature. But it must be added that there are instances in which the inclination is so decided ...
— The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church • A. Hamilton Thompson
... insinuate himself with such success into the good graces of the matron, that he had been allowed to stay in the House instead of proceeding with the rest of the study to the Great Hall for preparation. The palpable failure of his attempt to hide the book he was reading under the table when he was disturbed led him to cast at the Mutual Friend, the cause of his panic, so severe and forbidding a look, that that gentleman retired, and made ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... jackal, who strove for others, not for himself. I can understand the factious enmity of the born aristocrat, who is now called upon to give up the titles, dignities, and so-called honours, which, though stolen from the people, he has been taught to look upon as his right. He contends for a palpable possession which his hand has grasped, which he has tasted and long enjoyed. I know that he is a robber and a spoiler of the poor; I know, in short, that he is an aristocrat, and as such I would have him annihilated, abolished from the face of the earth. I would that the ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... wonderful prognostications set all England agog in 1708, and whose death, at a time when he was still alive and kicking, was so pleasantly and satisfactorily proved by Isaac Bickerstaff. The anti-climax would be too palpable, and they and their doings must be ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... than Luther—I mean among the cultivated classes of our day—and that very largely because in Erasmus there is no quick sensibility to religious emotion as there is in Luther, and no inconvenient fervour. The faults are there—coarse, plain, palpable— and perhaps more than enough has been made of them. Let us remember, as to his violence, that he was following the fashion of the day; that he was fighting for his life; that when a man is at death-grips with a tiger he may be pardoned if he strikes without ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... statures of the Lincolns, man and wife, was palpable, but this hardly substantiates the story of the President appearing with his wife on the White House porch in response to a ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... for it is the only thing that is visible to the Pharisee whom he desires to instruct. The pardon which this woman had obtained Simon did not and could not see; but her love being embodied in action was palpable to his senses. The energetic act of adoration was evidence of the heart-love from which it sprang. To this love accordingly Jesus points, and thence infers the existence of the great forgiveness which prompted it. In the end, He confirms and seals, by his own lips, the pardon which the ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... truth is that He might have averted it by the simple exercise of His will, but refused to do so, coldly looking on at our grief—not from afar, but close by—then we can only say that no God at all were better than that. It seems, then, as though, in order to escape from palpable inconsistency between theory and fact, we should have to make a surrender either of His immanence, or His omnipotence, or His benevolence, ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... away. Did his ideas run on parallel lines with mine; did he even suspect that I had formed any idea at all? I could not inquire, for I dislike being laughed at, especially by this man Dawson. I had nothing to go upon, at least so little that was palpable that anything which I might say would be dismissed as the merest guesswork, for which, as Dawson proclaimed, he had no use. Yet, yet—my original guess stuck firmly in my mind, improbable though it might be, and had just been nailed down tightly—I ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... (from which we enjoyed this view) to the level ground of the adjacent meadows could be scarcely less than three hundred feet. In these chambers there is a little world of curiosity for the antiquary; and yet it was but too palpable that very many of its more precious treasures had been transported to Munich. In the time of Maximilian II., when Nuremberg may be supposed to have been in the very height of its glory, this Citadel must have been worth a pilgrimage of many score miles to have ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... of nautical gallantry was going on. The boys, lads of fourteen or fifteen, were young sailors, and among the girls, who were of the same age and class, was one of bewitching beauty. There had been some very palpable passages of coquetry between the two parties, when one of the young sailors, a tight lad of thirteen or fourteen, rushed into the bevy of petticoats, and, borne away by an ecstasy of admiration, but certainly guided by an excellent taste, he seized the young Venus round the neck, and ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... consent, there would be a constant remembrancer of his own defective person ever before him; it was quite enough to be sensible of his condition without so palpable an image haunting the precincts of his home. Then Kittie would be drawn from him to the poor boy, who had already enlisted more of her sympathies than he had ever done. He would like to please her, though, and it would ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith |
